This invention relates to the production of carbon black. In one aspect, it relates to a process for producing high surface area carbon black. In particular, it relates to a method for the rapid mixing of feedstream and combustion stream in the production of high surface area carbon black.
A rapid mixing of feedstream and combustion stream is essential for the production of small particle carbon black. However, as carbon black reactor size increases the speed with which the feed and the combustion stream is mixed decreases, as long as the feed injection stream remains unchanged. This decrease of mixing speed is primarily due to the increase of eddy size with increasing reactor size, which in turn increases the mixing time. Consequently, when the reactor size increases there is a necessity for creating additional turbulence to decrease the mixing times.
By decreasing the mixing time an increase in the surface area of the carbon black product is achieved. Since carbon black price is based on the surface area of the carbon black and the amount of carbon black produced depends only on the rate of raw material input, it is important that high surface area carbon black can be produced in large amounts.
Therefore, an object of this invention is to produce high surface are carbon black. Another object of this invention is to create a high mixing speed in a large reactor. Another object of this invention is to decrease the eddy size and, therefore, create additional turbulence. Other objects of this invention will become apparent from the following description.